


Undefinable

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Blood and Water [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 03:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8516320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, The Pier."John loves Evan. John loves Rodney. The pier belongs to him and Rodney alone. Tag to 5x06 The Shrine.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Some dialogue directly from the episode. 
> 
> No infidelity.

Here’s the thing that no one on Atlantis understood: John loved Rodney. Was kind of in love with Rodney, in a way that wasn’t completely romantic, but wasn’t exactly platonic either. Rodney was his best friend. He understood the things John couldn’t say, like the fact that John played stupid to fit in sometimes. He knew when John was playing stupid, and he knew when John genuinely didn’t understand, and he never called John on it where other people could hear. Where John played stupid, Rodney played loud and melodramatic. People expected things of John; people expected things of Rodney, and both of them delivered without fail.

John would die for Rodney, would take a bullet for him, or a knife for him, or endless torture for him. More significantly - and more dangerously - John would kill for Rodney.

Had done it, once, letting a Wraith at a human.

The thing about being a soldier, about being on the front lines of a war, about fighting a war that had never before been fought in the entirety of Earth’s history, was that some lines got blurred. Some lines became stark and clear. There was a line drawn in the sand, for John, and Rodney was behind that line with him, and anything that dared cross that line to take Rodney had to be destroyed, no hesitation, no questions asked.

The thing about Evan was that he understood. Evan was a fighter, a soldier, a tactician. He’d grown up like John had, where there was only one attitude - hunger - and only one way to move forward - violence - and he’d escaped the hunger by honing the other thing he was good at. Evan understood how John loved Rodney because Evan loved Parrish and Coughlin and Reed and Billick and if he weren’t somehow also such a hopeless romantic he’d probably have been fucking them all in his spare time. Because Evan loved, and he loved fiercely and he loved wholeheartedly, and he knew John was capable of the same.

So Evan didn’t ask questions when John rolled out of bed in the middle of the night and went sprinting back to his quarters. Evan had a connection of his own with Atlantis, not quite like John’s but uncannily strong anyway, and he could have found out what was wrong, where John was going, and why.

But the pier belonged to John and Rodney. It was where they went, to decompress after complicated events on a mission that no one else could understand because no one else had been there. It was where they went to celebrate, and to mourn, and sometimes to just shoot the shit. It was where John took Rodney, a pair of beers in hand, to try to bring Rodney some measure of comfort while one of the things that most defined Rodney, his mind, was fading.

Evan never asked what they talked about, or what they did. Evan trusted that it was beer and talk, laughter and rough affection, no matter how tightly John held Rodney in his heart.

It meant something, though, that Rodney had come for John in his deepest distress. He’d been smiling and flirting and surprisingly charming and witty with Keller, but when his demons came calling, he trusted John to banish them.

“Betty,” John said.

Rodney made a face. “I’m pretty sure that’s not it.”

John cast him a look. “It’s Madison. See? At least you remembered what it wasn’t.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Oh, there’s an underrated skill.”

They bantered back and forth, and Rodney admitted he was fading faster than he was letting on. John’s heart clenched, but he tried to keep it lighthearted.

Rodney looked at John sidelong. “How about we say goodbye now?”

“No.” It was reflexive, stubborn, but John didn’t care.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean I’m not saying goodbye.”

“Well, I’m saying it anyway!”

“Well, I’m not listening.”

“Pretty soon, I won’t even know who you are!”

“Then I’ll remind you.”

Rodney frowned. “I don’t want you to see me like that. I want you to remember me as I am, your genius friend, not some shell -”

“Not happening,” John said firmly.

“But I -”

John shut him up with a kiss. It was simple, a chaste press of lips, but the words died in Rodney’s throat, and he stilled.

Then he pulled back. “We’re not actually like that.”

“You remembered what it wasn’t.”

“Then why did you kiss me?”

John took a deep breath. “Because I love you, Rodney. Beyond blood, beyond water. Beyond comrades-in-arms and brothers and friends and lovers. Beyond all that. And no matter who you are or what you are, I will always love you, till my dying breath.”

“But you and Lorne are -”

“We’re something else,” John said.

“Won’t he be mad?”

“He’ll understand.”

“What, like an open relationship?”

“What Lorne and I have is as undefinable as what you and I have, but totally different. I love him, and I love you, and they don’t encroach on each other or cancel each other out.”

Rodney squinted at him. “You’re only saying this because I might die. You’d never say it otherwise.”

“Maybe I’ll only ever say it once. I should have said it before.” John grasped Rodney’s shoulder. “There’s never going to be a goodbye between us, understand?”

Rodney studied him for a long time, then nodded. He sipped at his beer some more. “Are you ever going to tell me what’s up with you and Lorne?”

“You mean, why we’re together?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you looked at his ass?”

“No! Well, maybe. Once.” Rodney looked kind of dreamy for a second, then shook his head. “That’s not it, though. You’re not that shallow.”

“Evan’s a great guy.”

“There’s something else, though. Something in your eyes that not even the other soldiers have. Did you know him, before?”

“What Evan and I have is between us,” John said. It was what had kept him from ever trying anything with Rodney, even before Evan had arrived on the second wave of expedition personnel. There were some demons not even a genius could banish. John’s past had cost him his marriage before. He’d refused to let it cost him anything ever again. “He’s good for me, though. Know that.”

“I do know that,” Rodney said. “How come you and I never-?”

“I thought you were straight.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Two words: Carter. Katie.”

“Right.”

“I love you, Rodney. Remember that.”

“I will, Arthur.”

John stared at him for a moment. Then Rodney burst out laughing, and John started laughing, and they drank some more beer.

The pier was theirs and would always be theirs, but after Rodney fell asleep, John carried him back to the infirmary, and then he went back to Evan’s quarters and stripped out of his clothes, crawled back into bed with him, and the night was over.


End file.
